Venafi, the inventor of and market leader in Enterprise Key and Certificate Management (EKCM) solutions, in conjunction with Echelon One, an IT security research leader specializing in security programs and guidance, recently released the 2011 IT Security Best Practices Assessment. Echelon One led the effort to establish a set of best practices and worked closely with Venafi to evaluate how well 420 enterprises and government agencies implemented them. The assessment revealed an epidemic of security worst practices, with a majority of organizations failing to adhere to simple data protection standards. In many cases, it revealed that many organizations are critically unaware of what security practices are currently in place.

"The assessment findings were startling. We suspected we would find that many organizations were challenged, but we had no idea that failure rates would run this high," said Bob West, founder and CEO of Echelon One. "The good news is that with this information and free self assessment, organizations can see where they rank in comparison to peers, and determine where weaknesses exist. They can identify steps to significantly reduce security and compliance risks by leveraging automated processes with multi-layered data security strategies, including managed encryption."

The assessment evaluated where organizations rank in the implementation of 12 IT security and compliance best practices, ranging from how organizations leverage and manage encryption to how often they conduct security awareness and training programs. This slideshow highlights the top five best practices, their high failure rates, and recommendations for mitigation.

To protect the company from those insiders who abuse their privileged access and from hackers with stolen credentials, many companies are turning to a privileged access management (PAM) solution. ... More >>

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